‘Krypton’: What Is The Phantom Zone?

Spoilers ahead for tonight’s episode of Krypton, titled “House of El.”

Tonight on Krypton, Seg-El learned that his grandfather Val-El was responsible for the discovery of the limbo dimension known as the Phantom Zone. But what is it?

The Phantom Zone is, as Val says in the episode, a place that exists beyond time and space. In most versions of Superman mythology, Krypton uses the Zone to keep its worst criminals in suspended animation — which ultimately grants them an ironic chance at survival beyond when the world ends.

In the comics, The Phantom Zone was discovered by Jor-El and used on the planet Krypton as a method of imprisoning criminals. The inmates of the Phantom Zone reside in a ghost-like state of existence from which they can observe, but cannot interact with, the regular universe. Inmates do not age or require sustenance in the Phantom Zone; furthermore, they are telepathic and mutually insubstantial. Most have a particular grudge against Superman because his father created the method of their damnation, and was often the prosecutor at their trials. Over the years, Superman has periodically released Phantom Zone prisoners whose original sentences had been completed, and most of these went to live in the bottle city of Kandor.

In the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, The Phantom Zone has been independently discovered by various characters where it is called the “Buffer Zone” by the Bgztlians, the “Still Zone” by the White Martians, the “Stasis Zone” by Loophole, the “Ghost Zone” by Prometheus, and the “Honeycomb” by the first Queen Bee. After Mon-El suffered lead poisoning, it was Loophole’s Stasis Zone technology that allowed him to be placed in the Phantom Zone until he could be revived and cured in the 30th Century by the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Because of its ties to General Zod, a popular and widely used villain, almost every live-action version of Superman has a version of the Phantom Zone, from Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie and Superman II to Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel to Supergirl.

In Kevin J. Anderson’s novel The Last Days of Krypton, Jor-El discovers the Phantom Zone while experimenting in his lab, and is mercifully rescued from it by Lara, with whom he falls in love after they talk.

Per this episode, it seems as though Val-El was more able to control it than that, observing much of time and space from the Zone before returning to prepare for Brainiac’s impending attack.

Krypton airs on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT on SYFY.